Repeat, low-level offenders costly for Boulder County Jail

Madonna Mooney has been arrested 31 times since 2010. She has spent 544 days in the county jail, with a cost to taxpayers of $49,275.
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Matthew Jonas
)

Boulder County Jail top 10 most booked 2010-present

Number of arrests

Stephen McGonigal 33

Madonna Mooney 31

Jesus S. Duran 29

Scott Cunningham 26

Lester Dostin 18

Peter Smith 18

Gabriel Walker 18

Donald Price 17

Michael Gage 16

Jeffrey Wilson 16

Arrest and jail costs

Arrests Ranges from $250 to $1,000 per arrest

Jail Booking $30 each time

One day at the jail, normal inmate $67

One day at the jail, Axis One inmate $90.58

BOULDER -- Seated in a barren break room in the Boulder County Jail with the acrid smell of burning coffee permeating the air, Madonna Mooney doesn't mince words.

Looking at her situation through sober eyes, she sees it. Mooney has been arrested at least 31 times since Jan. 1, 2010. According to Boulder County Jail records, she has been booked 112 times since 2002. Her stays are typically short because her offenses are typically minor -- open container, trespassing, disorderly conduct, sometimes theft.

"The last time I had a home was in 2003," she said. "It is costing the taxpayers. They've spent a fortune on me." Under the stark florescent lights of the jail and wearing a T-shirt and jail-issued scrubs, Mooney makes jokes and laughs easily, but just as quickly, a dark cloud passes over her expression. At 52, she has spent much of her life in and out of jails, plagued by the relentless pull of alcohol.

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Without a home, without a place to return when she is released, in some ways she considers the Boulder County Jail -- 3200 Airport Road, Boulder -- her home address. She said it doesn't take much for her to get arrested anymore. Police and merchants alike know her. She is quickly recognized when she walks into a business.

"People say, 'I am gonna call the cops.' You've got people everywhere that are so afraid of you because you are a drunk, just because you are a homeless person," she said.

Lester "Steve" Dostin moved to Boulder in 1995. He has been arrested at least 106 times in Boulder County since that move and spent 3,431 days -- nearly 9½ years -- in the Boulder County Jail
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Matthew Jonas
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Frequent Fliers

Mooney is hardly alone when it comes to checking in and out of the Boulder County Jail.

Offenses that create the revolving door effect at the jail are typically minor, often municipal-level offenses. Most of the frequent fliers, as they are sometimes known at the jail, are homeless and, like Mooney, hooked on alcohol or drugs. Most are struggling with mental illness. The top-10 most frequently booked inmates at the Boulder County Jail have logged between 16 and 33 each arrests since 2010 alone. Individual career bookings range from 24 to 112, conservatively. According to jail records, typical offenses include possession and consumption of alcohol, obstruction, trespassing, camping, theft, brawling, public urination and disorderly conduct. Arrests also stem from violating bond conditions for those offenses by drinking.

Boulder County Jail Cmdr. Bruce Haas said the jail seems to be the only option for people who have not been able to divert themselves using other community programs. He said many of these inmates seem unable to function in society and can't find jobs and housing on their own. Many have alienated family and friends entirely.

"I don't know that they have the skill sets. I don't think it is within their ability to do that," said Haas, one of the jail's administrative commanders. "In many ways (arrests are) probably their saving grace because when they come to the jail they get medical care and proper diet."

And they get dry, even if it is just temporarily.

However, it is an expensive solution.

David, last name withheld, smokes a cigarette on the back porch Monday at his apartment in Longmont. David has been arrested frequently, but is living in a small apartment in north Longmont where his federal benefits help him pay 30 percent of the rent on a grant-funded Housing First home.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

Cmdr. Craig Earhart, patrol commander of the Longmont Police Department, estimated that the most basic arrest costs about $250 in public resources. He said that type of arrest might be one officer arresting a cooperative suspect on an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in court. However, more complicated arrests that require officers to investigate even a minor crime before making an arrest can cost about $1,000 in public money.

Under that formula, Mooney's 31 arrests have cost between $7,750 and $31,000 just since 2010. That's before getting to the jail.

Jonathon "Johnny" Nelson said he feels like he is trapped in a loop fueled by alcohol. He said he can't even keep track of the tickets he has received for things such as trespassing.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

Once in the jail, an inmate who does not require mental health assistance costs $67 per day, according to Haas. However, a majority of inmates are classified as "Axis One" inmates because they require mental health care -- counseling and mental health medications -- while incarcerated. Mooney falls into this category, which costs $90.58 per inmate per day.

Since 2010, Mooney has spent 544 days in the county jail, with a cost to taxpayers of $49,275. (That's through April 10). Her debt to the county in booking fees and court costs is $2,163.

All of Mooney's treks through the system -- for offenses such as disorderly conduct, trespassing, obstruction and misdemeanor theft -- have cost taxpayers between an estimated $59,188 and $82,438 in arrest and jail costs from Jan. 1, 2010, through April 9, 2012. The figure takes into account her costs of arrests, days incarcerated and outstanding debt. Haas said the costs through the criminal justice system just hint at the total public liability.

"The other thing you'll find is when they are not in the jail they are impacting other community resources," he said, noting that when those who are frequently arrested are not incarcerated, they will end up in the Addiction Recovery Center, homeless food programs and shelters, or in emergency rooms -- one of the most expensive health care options available.

Haas added that the numbers are conservative because the data pulled on each of the inmates are not capturing every booking. He said the first time someone is arrested, he or she is assigned an individual identifying number in the jail system. However, repeat offenders sometimes end up with multiple numbers because booking deputies can forget to check the system for previous stays. The computer system does not easily allow for officials to combine all of the numbers for the most complete data.

This has essentially been Mooney's life since 2003 when she lost her home because of mounting personal problems. Sometimes she has been arrested within a day of release.

For instance, police records show she was arrested on Sept. 21 at bar on the 300 block of Main Street in Longmont. A bar employee told police she walked into the bar and was highly intoxicated and had been banned from the property just three weeks earlier. He reported that she violated a protection order that the owner had against her, punched a window, and was stealing customers' beers. She denied it, but was arrested and booked.

On Sept. 28, she was arrested at the Dickens Manor at 303 Coffman St. after police were called to investigate a disturbance, police reported. When officers arrived, they found Mooney intoxicated, which constituted a violation of her bond conditions. She told officers she had been released from the Boulder County Jail only the night before.

Alcohol is Mooney's drug of choice. She said she had her first beer when she was 10 or 11. A friend had given it to her and she happily guzzled it down. She drank through her teenage years in Golden.

"I got kicked out of a slumber party," she recalled. "I remember trying to climb over a fence. I was so drunk I fell over the fence and nearly broke my arm.

Drinking became part of her lifestyle.

"I never actually knew what a drunk was," Mooney said. "I thought it was just natural to try to feel better. I thought everybody was just trying to feel better."

Mooney grew to be the mother of four children, but drinking and its attendant problems cost her custody of the kids and, ultimately, her home in Boulder in 2003. That is when she started to rack up arrests and bonds and protection orders that require her to avoid drinking. However, drinking is a staple of her life, and she rarely stops for long.

Treatment hasn't worked for her. She said she can't get a job with her record. Those who are incarcerated often lose identification cards. She said to keep a job you need a place to go after work, to shower. She has no personal resources and so she returns to the streets, to her transient drinking buddies, and to a lifestyle that lands her in jail over and over.

"The only difference is I am sober when I leave here," she said of the jail.

Her story is a familiar one for those who find themselves incarcerated repeatedly.

Lester "Steve" Dostin, 53, has been booked at the Boulder County Jail 18 times since Jan. 1, 2010.

He raged last week at a system that he believes sets him up for failure. He is also an Axis One inmate who requires mental health care while in jail.

"Every time I get arrested, half my stuff disappears," he said, accusing police of stealing his possessions when he is booked at the jail. "They don't try to help any kind of job progress."

Dostin said he is from Indianapolis, lived in Oregon for a time and moved to Boulder in 1995. He has been arrested at least 106 times in Boulder County since that move and spent 3,431 days -- nearly 91/2 years -- in the Boulder County Jail in that time. He said he feels abused in jail and said that feeling makes him turn to alcohol when he leaves. The cycle repeats.

Fellow inmate Jonathan Nelson, 40, feels like he is also trapped in a loop fueled by alcohol.

He said he can't even keep track of the tickets he has received for things such as trespassing.

Nelson said he turned to alcohol after losing a lucrative job in construction. He also lost his home. Sleeping on the streets led to tickets and arrests.

"Where am I going to go; where am I going to sleep; what am I going to do?" he asked. "If you have no place to go, you sleep outside where they can arrest you for sleeping outside."

He said police find the homeless no matter where they hide to sleep.

"I still don't know how they find you," he said. "They just pop up at 3 a.m."

The lifestyle, he knows, is a dangerous one. He said he has found the bodies of other transients. Mooney said many of her friends have died on the streets over the years, as well. They said they fear they will die the same way. A transient man was found dead at a campsite on the 1000 block of South Hover Street on Wednesday afternoon.

For his part, Nelson said he hopes his latest stint at the jail will clear up all of his tickets and warrants and he is hopeful that his former boss will be able to find work for him so he can try to get back on his feet.

Nelson said he talked to his former boss, who wants Nelson to curb drinking in exchange for help.

While the county offers an integrated drug treatment court program and other diversion options, the repeat offenders have failed to find help in these programs, which leaves them among the ranks of the county's chronically homeless and oft-arrested.

MDHI uses the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's definition for chronic homelessness, which defines the condition as an adult or family that has been homeless continually for one year or longer or has had four or more episodes of homelessness in three or more years.

Among the chronically homeless are Mooney, Dostin and Nelson.

However, not all programs have failed.

David, who asked that his last name be withheld for security reasons, was among the jail's frequent fliers and spent years on the streets, apparently surviving against the odds as his friends and drinking buddies died.

Last week he sat in the living room of a small apartment in north Longmont where his federal benefits help him pay 30 percent of the rent on a grant-funded Housing First home.

"This is a program for people who have reached a chronic stage of homelessness," said Alex Bloomfield, David's caseworker.

Bloomfield visits him at the apartment about once a week and helps out occasionally with chores that can't be done without a vehicle. David is among about 30 people countywide who got apartments under the program, and his constant trips to the jail were derailed.

David is 65 now and drinks at home.

"I don't have too many options for the most part," he said, noting he isn't sure he can survive another Colorado winter on the streets. "I just have to hold on here as long as I can."

It is a boring life, he said.

He watched so many friends die and said he figured he would end up the same way.

Haas, the commander at the jail, said there is little else that can be done with the repeat offenders and chronically homeless who seem to have defaulted to incarceration for help. In-patient mental health beds are few. For instance, Boulder County has access to only 14 inpatient beds at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Fort Logan and competes with the rest of the state for access to 450 beds at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo. Meanwhile, those frequent flyers are all known across the system and there are not solutions on the table to change that, he said.

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